A Snapshot of a Moment

Tuesday, April 16

 

The trees are shedding, well some trees are. I wish I knew the names. I see so many different species and wonder if there is an app that might help me know the names but so far haven’t tried to find one. One hot afternoon I watched one particular tree lose a flurry of yellowed leaves. Its branches are so bare now. Spontaneously I wrote a haiku about it, but I can’t find the haiku now. I never expected the tree-scape to look different during different seasons. Small changes but noticeable. 

I am still irritated by smells, or my nostrils and eyes are, and I mostly want to hermit. I want to hermit more than I have wanted to in a long, long, time, but life has got busy and I often need to just flow. But I am still sitting alone and reflecting, or sketching, or journaling, a lot. 

I enrolled in a memoir writing class and I want to push myself, despite the allergy headaches I still get, to build my writing muscle and stamina. Why? I don’t know as right now I notice my ambitions and expectations about my writing are low. I used to hope to get a novel published but right now I am just meh about publication. I do want to keep improving my craft though. My ambition and expectations about everything are low. Even about being healthier. I read a line somewhere about illness. It went something like this – I realized later that the illness wasn’t the problem, but obsessing about it was the problem. That thought changed something about the anxiety around healing from anything.

But going back to pushing — when I chose to push myself in karate, I didn’t know I would one day teach it. Who knows what life will fling at you? 

It's only been a week, but I love that memoir class. The teacher seems to expect or hope that we will push ourselves and having an outer driver is useful right now, and I like being in a class with others who are writing.

My email group — the one where we share our angst and hopes about India — has been very active. Elections start soon and U-tubers are making more videos. One about the connection between buying electoral bonds and the Pharma industry was terrifying. The presenter showed definite connections between faulty drugs licensed through and bribes paid using the bonds. I don’t know how anyone can forgive this or say this is not the first time this has happened, meaning previous governments have done the same. I hope this story is picked up by international media. India has sometimes been called the pharmacy of the world. It exports medicines to many countries, and this affects more than just India. Of course our foreign ministry will call it a conspiracy by western nations to defame India but at least the story will get more coverage.

India deserves more than a party that believes in uniformity and one face for Indian identity and culture. India deserves diversity. Monocultures of anything are disastrous, whether it is plants or people or media. India deserves not electing a right-wing government expert in lying and intent on forming a Hindu Rashtra. India deserves to feel free to dress, eat, speak, marry, the way every/each/any individual wants to. But India will get what a percentage of people will vote in. The rest of us don’t deserve this but we will have to lump it and live with it. It depresses me often and feels like doom. And sometimes is feels like a blip in the long time span of the life of a country. Both are true. 

On TV debates I often hear followers of the right-wing party saying that if any opposition candidate wins it is because their constituency consists of minorities — Muslims. Somebody retorted are they not citizens of India too? I wish right-wingers would understand that. 

A part of me will never forgive the people who overlook the way bribes are used to get faulty medicines to us, the way institutions are used to harass the political opposition, the pay or join my party and get out of jail politics, the way media blanks out news which helps the right-wing rulers lie more about their achievements. I can’t overlook these things. 

This is me in this moment. This post is short because I must go work on my course homework before I rush out for a workshop I am helping facilitate. Thanks for reading.